Archeology from space Sarah Parcak
when I was a child growing up in Maine
one of my favorite things to do was to
look for sand dollars on the seashores
of Maine because my parents told me it
would bring me luck but you know these
shells they’re hard to find they’re
covered in sand they’re difficult to see
however over time I got used to looking
for them I I started seeing shapes and
patterns that help me to collect them
this this grew into a passion for
finding things a love for the past in
archaeology and eventually when I
started studying Egyptology I realized
that that seeing with my naked eyes
alone wasn’t enough because all of a
sudden in Egypt my Beach had grown from
a tiny Beach in Maine to one 800 miles
long next to the Nile and my sand
dollars had grown to the size of cities
this is really what brought me to using
satellite imagery for trying to map the
past I knew that I had to see
differently so I want to show you an
example of how we see differently using
the infrared this is a site located in
the eastern Egyptian Delta called Bendis
and the site visibly appears brown but
when we use the infrared and we process
it all of a sudden using false color the
site appears as bright pink what you are
seeing are the actual chemical changes
to the landscape caused by the building
materials and activities of the ancient
Egyptians what I want to share with you
today is how we’ve used satellite data
to find an ancient Egyptian city called
itched Aoi
missing for thousands of years each
tower was ancient Egypt’s capital for
over 400 years at a period of time
called the Middle Kingdom about four
thousand years ago the site is located
in the fame of Egypt and the site’s
really important because in the Middle
Kingdom that was this great Renaissance
for ancient Egyptian art architecture
and religion Egyptologist have always
known
the site of each toy was located
somewhere near the pyramids of the two
kings who built it indicated within the
red circles here but somewhere within
this massive floodplain this area is
huge it’s four miles by three miles in
size now the Nile used to flow right
next to the city of each tower and as it
shifted and changed and moved over time
to the east it covered over the city so
how do you find a buried city in a vast
landscape finding it randomly would be
the equivalent of locating a needle in a
haystack blindfolded wearing baseball
mitts so what we did is we used NASA
topography data to map out the landscape
very subtle changes we were started to
be able to see where the Nile used to
flow but you can see in more detail in
even more interesting this very slight
raised area seen within the circle
appeared what she thought could possibly
be the location of the city of its Howey
so we collaborated with Egyptian
scientists to do coring work which you
see here when I say coring it’s it’s
like ice coring but instead of layers of
climate change are looking for layers of
human occupation and five meters down
underneath a thick layer of mud we found
a dense layer of pottery what this shows
is that at this possible location
Wichita we 5 meters down we have a layer
of occupation for several hundred years
dating to the Middle Kingdom dating to
the exact period of time we think it’s
Howie is we also found worked stone
carnelian quartz and agate this shows
that there was a jewelers workshop here
these might not look like much but when
you think about the most common stones
used in jewelry from the Middle Kingdom
these are the stones that were used so
we have a dense layer of Occupation
dating to the Middle Kingdom at this
site we also have evidence of an elite
jewelers workshop showing that whatever
was there was a very important City no
it’s how he was here yet but we’re going
to be returning to the site in the near
future to map it out and even more
importantly we have funding to train
young Egyptians and the use of satellite
technology so that they can be the ones
making great discoveries as well so I
wanted to end with my favorite
quote from the Middle Kingdom it’s
probably written at the city of its
Howey
four thousand years ago sharing
knowledge is the greatest of all
callings there’s nothing like it in the
land so as it turns out ted was not
founded in nineteen eighty four eighty
making ideas happen huh
actually actually started in nineteen
eighty four BC at a not loss for long
city found from above it certainly puts
finding seashells by the seashore in
perspective thank you very much